Hello Kitty blankets

My father is known for his phenomenally bad choices in gifts. Yes I know, it is the thought that matters. His choices tend to show that he has little to no idea about our (my sister's and my) interests or likes and dislikes though. An example of this would be a gift my sister received this past year. It was a "sew easy" Hello Kitty fringe quilt. On the plus side she does indeed enjoy sewing and quilting. On the negative side though, she is a very accomplished seamstress and tends to make heirloom quality quilts. So she had no interest in this project at all.

In this case my dad's lack of insight in our dislikes ended up paying off. A friend of mine is a preschool teacher in Roxbury, and they are always in need for the basics. We have donated everything from movies (for the class room) to coats. Actually warm coats, shoes and blankets are always needed for recess and nap time respectively. A lot of the kids just don't have these basics to bring to school (or at least warm enough ones).

So I spent an evening and an afternoon putting this foolish kit together into two good sized nap-time blankets (instead of one queen sized one). Not only do I feel like I have done a good thing, but you can definitely see some improvement in my sewing machine skills as I went a long. (I have always been more of a hand sewing sort of person and had only rudimentary sewing machine skills.)